Video to Binary data

I want to convert video (including images and audio) to binary data for some processing can anyone suggest best method for the same.

Answers (3)

filename = 'YourFile.avi';
[fid, msg] = fopen(filename, 'r'); %not 'rt' !
if fid < 0
error('Failed to open file "%s" because "%s"', filename, msg);
end
bytes = fread(fid, [1 inf], '*uint8');
fclose(fid);
bitstream = reshape(logical(dec2bin(bytes, 8) - '0').', 1, []);
bytes is now a vector of uint8 containing the file -- the entire file, including all audio and video and EXIF and so on.
bitstream is now a vector of false (0) and true (1) values, giving the bytes in MSB-first order.

5 Comments

Sir how can I return the the video to it original shape, and play it ?
Mostafa Taleb
Mostafa Taleb on 2 Aug 2021
Edited: Mostafa Taleb on 2 Aug 2021
I mean the vice versa for your code above , thanks in advance, your comments really help .
bytestream = reshape(uint8(bin2dec(reshape(char(bitstream+'0'),8,[]).')),1,[]);
bytestream is now uint8 and should have the same contents as the bytes variables did.
You cannot play this directly, as it represents a file. You need to write it to a new file on the other end and play the file.
This is really only suitable for the case where you have to transmit the entire file to a remote system. It is not what you would use to do transformations such as doing filtering on the audio or doing object detection in the video.
And how can I display the video from this bytestream ?
bytestream = reshape(uint8(bin2dec(reshape(char(bitstream+'0'),8,[]).')),1,[]);
As I wrote above, you would have to write the stream of bytes to a file, and then read it from the file.
Note that this code is for sending over the entire file, including any audio, and any video and any copyright information, and Closed Captions For The Hearing Impaired, and everything in the file.
The code to send only video is different.

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Image Analyst
Image Analyst on 3 Jan 2020

0 votes

I don't think MATLAB can extract or write out audio data to or from video files.

5 Comments

Computer Vision Toolbox can read and write audio in video files.
What functions are those that do that?
It looks like it requires Simulink? Does it? I don't have Simulink.

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AFIF GUERFI
AFIF GUERFI on 6 Aug 2020

0 votes

file bitstream is not read?

1 Comment

In the code I posted, the Avi file itself is converted to binary and the stream of bits is stored in the variable bitstream . The bitstream variable is the intended output of the section of code.
Note that the code I posted does not extract the frames or audio from the Avi as images or audio: it deals with the file as a whole, including whatever headers and metadata it might have. The code I posted does not care that the file is a valid Avi file, it only treats it as a chunk of bytes.

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Asked:

on 3 Jan 2020

Commented:

on 17 Nov 2021

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